Diana, Princess of Wales is renowned for her incredible fashion sense – but her daring approach to style did lead to some disagreements, one of her favourite designers, Jacques Azagury, exclusively tells HELLO!
Referring to an ice-blue dress that she wore to a gala performance of Swan Lake in 1997, he says:
“Take the blue dress. She wanted to go even shorter than that, and we [Jacques and Paul Burrell, Diana’s butler] said: ‘Look, there’s not much dress at the top, there’s not much at the bottom – you’ll end up with nothing in between!’”
“I would put as little fabric on her as possible – she looked great,’ the designer continues. ‘I think she’s still influencing fashion – she could step out today and it would still be on trend. They [her dresses] were timeless. And I think she helped make them tha
Jacques spoke to HELLO! at a preview of Princess Diana Style & A Royal Collection at Julien’s Auctions, which will host a sale of over 300 items that include some of her best known looks, where he recalled how “dressing Diana was more about her – I tried to keep the dress as secondary”.
Jacques is known for designer the ‘famous five’: glamorous evening dresses Diana opted for in her later years, such as the Swan Lake dress, and a black Chantilly lace dress she wore for her 36th birthday – the last dress she wore to a public engagement before her untimely death.
While the two dresses themselves aren’t on sale – they are thought to be owned by Princes William and Harry – swatches from them are.
FASHION CHOICES
In 2023, a ballerina-length gown Jacques designed for Diana, which she wore in Italy in 1985, set a record for a dress worn by the Princess sold at auction. Selling for almost $1.15m (£900,000), it fetched 11 times the asking price.
That item was at “the beginning of our friendship love story”, he remembers. In fact, it was one she looked at when she first visited his stand at the London Designer Collection. “I got a call from the Palace and they said: ‘Would you mind if the Princess comes and sees you?’ I was delighted. And she came, and of course, that was the dress she chose.”
The sale, which will take place in Los Angeles on 26 June, has a vibrant range of items from the 1980s and ’90s, including a bright floral print dress that has been described as one of Diana’s “secret weapons”. Nicknamed the “caring dress”, the Bellville Sassoon look was one she opted for when visiting children in hospitals and Aids patients because she knew it would cheer them up.
© Tim Graham Photo Library via GettyThe line-up also includes a yellow Bruce Oldfield skirt suit that Diana wore to Royal Ascot in 1987, green shoes she wore to a London premiere in 1990, the peach feathered John Boyd hat that topped off her going-away outfit in 1981, and a bright magenta Head ski suit she wore while skiing in Liechtenstein in 1985.
It was this ski suit that Martin Nolan, co-founder and executive director of Julien’s Auctions, was most excited about including in the line-up.
© Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty“She bought it, it wasn’t made for her,” he says. “It was the ’80s, there was a depression, she was conscious of sustainability, conscious of economics – and she wasn’t afraid to repeat it.
“She was very brilliant. Back then, in the Eighties and Nineties, women didn’t think they could be empowered. But Diana was one of the ladies who broke through the glass ceiling, if you will.”
INCREASING IN VALUE
The event is reminiscent of the auction Diana – and a young Prince William – masterminded in 1997. She sold 79 of her most celebrated dresses, raising over $3m for charities close to her heart.
Although Diana died two months after the sale, what Martin finds special is that “all the items that she sold herself, that went out into the universe, are now coming back slowly to auction again – and are selling for several multiples of what they sold for in 1997”.
“This is the biggest auction of Princess Diana ever,” he adds. “There are other items from other royal [family] members – the King, Queen Camilla – but the focus is on Princess Diana. We loved Diana and we have all these items that keep that memory alive.”
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